Starbucks Holiday Menu: Festive Drinks and Cold Foams

The starbucks christmas menu has six core drinks, and the lineup changes a little from one year to the next. Here is the pattern from the most recent launch, with the day each one tends to show up.

The list is a snapshot, not a promise. Starbucks has changed the lineup before, so check the app for what your store serves today.

There are two things to notice in the table. First, most of the launch-day drinks are sweet and dessert-like, so a smaller size is a sensible way to try one. Second, the later-season drinks, chestnut praline and eggnog, are the ones people ask about most in early December, because they are the last to arrive and the first to run out.

The lineup also leaves out some past favorites. The Cran-Merry drink line, a toasted white chocolate mocha and a gingerbread hot chocolate were not on the latest board, even though fans asked for them. When a drink is missing, it is not a store error. It simply was not part of that year's menu.

Hot holiday drinks follow one recipe pattern: espresso, steamed milk, a flavored sauce or syrup, whipped cream and a topping. The flavor changes and the structure stays put, which makes it easy to order any of them with fewer pumps or a different milk.

Our menu data has no card for the holiday-only drinks, so there is no price shown here. The starbucks coffee holiday drinks that do appear on the delivery menu are the pecan lattes below, which share the same winter baking-spice idea.

Here is the usual build by size for the hot espresso drinks. Pump counts are the standard defaults and a store can change them.

An iced Venti is 24 ounces and gets a third shot and a sixth pump, so it is both stronger and sweeter than the hot one. Sizes work the same way across the menu, as the cup size guide explains.

The two hot classics sit at the top of most lists. The Peppermint Mocha blends mocha sauce and peppermint syrup with espresso and milk, then finishes with whipped cream and chocolate curls. Read the full Peppermint Mocha breakdown for the shots, pumps and calories by size.

The Caramel Brulée Latte uses a thick burnt-sugar sauce and a crunchy topping on whipped cream. It tastes like the top of a crème brûlée, with no custard. See the Caramel Brulee Latte details for its build.

Starbucks Chestnut Praline Latte and Praline Chestnut Syrup

The Chestnut Praline Latte combines chestnut and praline flavors with espresso, steamed milk and whipped cream. The taste is nutty, buttery and lightly spiced, closer to a toasted candy than to a roasted chestnut you would eat from a street cart.

Starbucks lists it as a later-season drink, so it tends to arrive in early December instead of launch day. The flavor comes from a chestnut praline syrup, which stores use up fast. When the syrup runs out, the drink is gone from that store.

Caffeine follows the shot count, so a Grande with two shots lands near 150 milligrams. Check the app for calories, since the topping and milk change them. People who like the sweetness of a Pecan Crunch Latte tend to enjoy this one too.

Starbucks Eggnog Latte: Build, Dairy and Timing

The Eggnog Latte is built from steamed eggnog and espresso, finished with ground nutmeg. It is richer and thicker than a regular latte because eggnog is a cream-based drink, not plain milk.

It contains dairy and egg by nature, so it is not dairy-free and a plant milk swap does not fit the recipe. Check the allergen details in the app before ordering.

Starbucks brought it back after a year away, and it also arrives later in the season, usually around the start of December. Availability varies by store, since stores order a limited supply of eggnog, and a store can run out before the season ends. If yours does not have it, ask whether a nearby store does.

Not every festive drink is hot. The launch lineup includes cold drinks built over ice, and most of the hot favorites can be ordered iced too.

The Iced Sugar Cookie Latte and Iced Gingerbread Chai are made to be cold. The Caramel Brulée Latte and Peppermint Mocha both come hot or iced, and the Peppermint Mocha also comes blended as a Frappuccino. Launch coverage said holiday drinks can usually be ordered hot, iced or blended where it makes sense.

Which ones do not work iced? The eggnog drink is built around steamed eggnog, so an iced version is not a standard order and may not be offered. Chestnut praline may be offered iced at some stores, but the topping can change, so ask first.

Iced holiday drinks taste lighter than the hot versions, because the ice melts and thins the sweetness. That is also the reason an iced Venti gets a third shot and more pumps. If you want less ice and more drink, ask for light ice.

For a drink that tastes closest to a spiced tea over ice, try the gingerbread chai. If you like the chai base, how an iced chai latte is built shows the milk, ice and spice balance.

Sugar Cookie Latte Starbucks Fans Order: Iced Almond Milk Version

The sugar cookie drink is built with espresso, sugar cookie syrup, milk and red and green sprinkles on top. Starbucks lists the current drink as the Iced Sugar Cookie Latte, and the dairy-free version has long been sold with almond milk.

Fans who search for an iced sugar cookie almond milk latte starbucks serves usually mean the almond milk build, which pours blonde espresso and sugar cookie syrup over ice with almond milk. Confirm the milk in the app, because the standard recipe can change from season to season.

If you want a creamier version, the Iced Sugar Cookie Breve uses half-and-half instead of almond milk. That makes it richer and not dairy-free. Almond milk is the lighter choice, though it still carries the syrup's sugar.

Starbucks Gingerbread Latte vs Iced Gingerbread Chai

There is no Gingerbread Latte on the current holiday board. The gingerbread options now are the Iced Gingerbread Chai and the Gingerbread Cream Cold Foam. A gingerbread latte did exist in the past, and Starbucks launched it two years before the Peppermint Mocha.

So if you want a gingerbread latte today, the closest swaps are:

• Iced Gingerbread Chai: chai spice with gingerbread flavor, no espresso
• Gingerbread Cream Cold Foam on an iced latte or cold brew
• A custom order, if the store still has gingerbread syrup on hand

The chai version has black tea caffeine, about 95 milligrams in a Grande by published figures, so it is gentler than a latte. The foam on coffee gives you the gingerbread taste with the coffee strength you want.

The holiday launch brought cold foam flavors that work on any cold drink. Launch coverage named Sugar Cookie, Peppermint Chocolate, Gingerbread and Caramel Brûlée. Some later-season coverage also named an eggnog foam, so ask your store what it has.

Each flavor comes as a cream cold foam. A protein version is also offered, which adds about 15 grams of protein per Grande, according to launch coverage.

Cold foam goes on iced drinks only. It floats on top instead of mixing in, so each sip starts with sweet foam and ends with plain coffee. Adding it usually costs extra, and the price varies by store. If you want the flavor without much sugar, ask for the foam on an unsweetened cold brew and skip the syrup.

Pair sweet foams with bitter drinks. Cold brew is the usual base, because the foam supplies sugar without making the coffee taste candy-like. For every foam, from vanilla to chocolate, read the guide to all cold foam flavors explained.

The starbucks holiday drink menu is easier to read as a chart. This table lines up the main drinks by temperature, milk, flavor and the nutrition numbers that are confirmed.

Table: holiday beverage starbucks options compared. Cells that say not confirmed mean no reliable figure was found for this page, so check the app.

The calorie and caffeine figures for the first two come from outside databases that copy Starbucks data, with 2% milk and whipped cream. Treat them as estimates. Caffeine for the rest is based on the usual shot counts or the chai base, not on a published figure.

The Peppermint Mocha has the most caffeine of the group because the mocha sauce adds cocoa on top of the shots.

Low Calorie Holiday Drinks at Starbucks and Lighter Orders

Whipped cream, sauce pumps and size drive the numbers. A few changes shrink a holiday drink without ruining it.

• No whipped cream: saves about 80 calories on a Peppermint Mocha
• Smaller size: a Short Peppermint Mocha is about 240 calories, against about 440 for a Grande
• Fewer pumps: ask for half the sauce or syrup
• Nonfat or almond milk: lowers calories and fat

Take the Grande Peppermint Mocha as an example. Skipping the whip drops it by roughly 80 calories, from about 440 to about 360, and going to a Short cuts it nearly in half. Halving the pumps trims sugar as well.

The Caramel Brulée Latte works the same way. Ask for no whip and half the sauce, and a Grande that starts near 410 calories falls by a meaningful amount. The exact total depends on your build, so confirm it in the app. See more ideas on the page about lighter Starbucks orders.

The holiday lineup leaves, and a winter lineup takes over. The winter menu starts after the holiday run ends, usually in early January, and it brings flavors that feel less Christmas-specific, like pistachio and pecan.

A good rule is that anything built on a Christmas flavor leaves with the Christmas menu, and anything built on a general winter flavor can last into the new year. Pecan and pistachio drinks, with brown-butter and nutty notes, belong to the second group.

What stays and what goes depends on the year. Peppermint, eggnog, gingerbread and sugar cookie are holiday-only flavors and leave when the holiday menu does. Standard drinks such as lattes, cold brew, hot chocolate and chai stay all year.

The holiday run ended around the second week of January in recent years, though Starbucks has not set a fixed date. Wording matters here: a drink is available when it is on the menu, not on a calendar day.

For a warm no-coffee winter drink, see the hot chocolate and peppermint cocoa page. After winter, the next seasonal wave is the Valentine's drinks that follow.

The festive food lineup has five items: the Snowman Cookie, Cranberry Bliss Bar, Sugar Plum Cheese Danish, Polar Bear Cake Pop and Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread. Most are returning favorites, and the cake pop and pull-apart were new in recent launches.

Each one is described by Starbucks as a holiday treat:

• Cranberry Bliss Bar: a cranberry blondie with cream cheese and orange icing
• Sugar Plum Cheese Danish: cream cheese with a spiced plum topping
• Polar Bear Cake Pop: vanilla cake with white chocolate and a Santa hat
• Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread: cinnamon-sugar croissant pieces with streusel

Browse the bakery and treat options for the everyday items that stay on the case.

Starbucks Snow Man Cookie and Other Returning Treats

The Snowman Cookie is a sugar cookie with icing, decorated with earmuffs and a scarf. It returns most holiday seasons, but the exact design changes now and then. It is sold in the bakery case at participating stores, not as a drink.

Our menu data has no price for it, so none is shown. Prices differ by store, and the delivery app often runs higher than the counter. Check the case or app to see if it is stocked today.

The holiday menu usually starts in the first week of November. In the most recent launch it arrived on November 6, and the later-season drinks, Chestnut Praline and Eggnog, followed about a month afterward in early December.

The run lasts through the holiday season and into early January. There is no fixed end date, and drinks vanish as stores sell out of syrups and toppings. Popular items can disappear before the menu officially changes.

Discontinued drinks do not come back on request. The Cran-Merry drinks from one year were not on the next year's board, for example, and some bakery items also rotated out. Red Cup Day is a separate event: customers who buy any handcrafted holiday drink get a reusable red cup while supplies last. In the latest launch it fell on November 13.

Because dates change, rely on the app. It shows the live menu for your store. Open it, pick your store and look at the seasonal or trending section. If a drink is listed, it is available there. If it is missing, the store may be out of an ingredient, and a nearby store might still have it.

Ordering early in the season gives you the best chance at every drink, since stocks of the special syrups and toppings run down toward the end of the run. If you are planning a gift run or an office order, build the order in the app a day ahead and confirm each drink is listed, so nobody is surprised at the counter.

Pick by the flavor you crave.

• Minty: Peppermint Mocha
• Caramelized: Caramel Brulée Latte
• Nutty: Chestnut Praline Latte
• Creamy: Eggnog Latte
• Spiced: Iced Gingerbread Chai
• Lighter: Iced Sugar Cookie Latte with almond milk, or any drink with half the pumps

Think about the time of day too. The chai is the gentlest choice for an afternoon, with about 95 milligrams of caffeine in a Grande, while the mocha is the strongest morning pick. If you are sharing a table, order two different drinks and trade sips.

If you cannot choose, start with a Tall of the Peppermint Mocha. It is the most familiar, and the smaller cup keeps the sugar in check. For a coffee break without the sugar, add a cold foam to a plain cold brew.

In short, the starbucks holiday menu drinks fall into five tastes: mint, caramel, nut, cream and spice. Pick the taste first, then the size. Chocolate fans should also check the hot chocolate and peppermint cocoa page, and mint fans can read the full Peppermint Mocha breakdown.